Beautiful little clawfoot tub has been found

As you may have seen in my other threads, we had a plumbing disaster last weekend that is still going strong.

In the course of the mess, our 1923 pedestal tub was destroyed. The porcelain on the bottom of the tub comes off with my fingernail... I wanted to cry, but I didn't have time, since it's our only shower and I have six people coming to the house next weekend for a four day photo shoot.

So, yesterday, we found a lovely little clawfoot for a very reasonable price in better shape than our current one was before the disaster. The back side of it appears to only have the original coat of paint, and the back is what will be the front when we put it in. It has a lot of splatter from people painting the room, but that can be removed of course.

My question is - though the back of the tub appears to only have one coat of paint on most of it, it is rather rough. What is the best way to smooth it out? I've read that I can use an epoxy filler, but will that "pop" when the tub is full of hot water and expands? I don't have a sand blaster, and this MUST be installed in the next week, so I can't send it out or anything like that.

Removing the paint will be easy, I'm going to tent the tub and put ammonia in with it and let the ammonia do the work, then pressure wash it. We'll then hit it with some auto primer before we do anything else.

Thoughts on fillers?

Thanks,

Michelle

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Old cast iron clawfoots tended to have coarse surfaces because of the casting process. I would leave yours alone beyond getting the paint off. If the opposing side is glossy it is probably because somebody put an epoxy coating on it and probably did so in place if the other side was not finished.

When I painted clawfoots in good shape I put on a coat of nice metal primer and then two coats of Benjamin Moore oil-based Impervo. Satin or gloss would be your choice.

Your timeframe worries me though. The primer and two coats of paint are going to need 3-4 days just to dry between coats. You sure you can get the thing cleaned up, old paint and whatever stripped off in an ammonia tent, and primer and paint on within a week? I fear you are rushing this and will be disappointed.

You sure you cannot drag this somewhere to be sandblasted? That would buy you a day or so.

One half painted foot - two were painted white, and one was never painted at all.

First tenting with ammonia over night.

After first power wash

Next I put towels on it, and soaked them with ammonia, and left it for a few hours.

Much better after second power wash!

The primed feet

First coat of green. Rustoleum straight out of the can satin hunter green oil paint.

It had it's own tent for the night for protection.

installed yesterday...

I have to say that this tub is MUCH lower quality finish than the American Standard that it is replacing. This one still had big rough casting plugs on the bottom and just didn't look "finished." The American Standard has a smooth bottom, it is branded in two locations, as well as being dated and tagged. Now that it's installed, it's fine, but I was surprised at the lack of finish quality of the piece as a whole.